|
Donkey Kong 64
Review by: Shin Egg Robo X
Donkey Kong Country was an amazing title that seemed to have shocked gamers worldwide in 1994. The superb graphics and quality gameplay made it a classic. After seeing two more annual installments on the SNES, it seemed like Rare was too busy making titles like Goldeneye 007, Banjo Kazooie, and Jet Force Gemini instead of DKC4. Yet in reality, DK64 was supposedly in development for four years. One of the first games to require an expansion pak, DK64 had a lot to live up to and it both failed and succeeded at that.
Once again the Kongs have been kidnapped by K. Rool. The biggest change is of course, the 3D gameplay. You go outside of your house and you see the amazing graphics. DK64 has shading and detail on him that no other N64 platformer has seen. The enviroments are large and colorful. After a brief training session, DK is ready to go.
The game seems like a carbon copy of Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie. It is in fact as DK now is travelling through levels that you'd never imagine with the DKC series but something you'd see on the next Mario and Banjo games. There's a total of 6 levels in the game. 6? That seems like the game would be small right? Wrong. DK64 is massive, probably having the biggest levels you'll ever come across on a platformer.
The game also happens to copy the N64 platformer greats by collecting Golden Bananas, the stars or jiggies of DK64. It seems fine enough but there are a total of 5 characters in the game with 5 bananas each. Then of course there are blueprints, banana completion coins, new abilities to gain, ability to play music, bananas, oranges, etc. The game is a collect-a-thon, plain and simple. This can frustrate many, considering how some golden bananas are annoyingly frustrating to get, requiring 15 minutes of exploration. As a result, to get 100% in the game requires you to put in a good 40-50 hours into the game at the very least.
Graphically, the game is brilliant. It should, it takes advantage of the Expansion Pak, adding 4 MB of memory to the game. The difference isn't that dramatic but its noticeable. Pop up still occurs and slowdown happens in rare instances. Yet the game streams massive levels that are decently textured, Rare still has to get props for that. Rare tried to bring back the photo realistic look from DKC into some items like DK's coconuts.
Sound wise, the game is impressive. Nothing really great but nothing bad either. The game also can slowly fade in and change the music in the area, which is cool because not many platformers do this. The game doesn't have excessive voices like Banjo Kazooie but has a decent fill of it. Some of them are hilarious, some are just annoying. When discovering a golden banana, the audio clip never gets old. Although by all means skip the intro. Rare for some reason thought it was a good idea to have a rap intro. Its the typical cheesy rap you see in most video games.
Gameplay, the collect-a-thon idea wears out on you. Pulling up the screen to see 10 different items is ridiculous and then having multiple menus with more items you collected is ludicrous. If anything, the game be described as too epic. The worlds are so massive and with each characters' bananas so far away from the other ones, 99% of the time you will be running back and forth. It may bother some or may not but do this for a total of 150 times and you'll get my point. Essentially they are stars and jiggies but Rare was cheap for having you explore the levels 5 different times because of five different characters. Fortunately there are warp pads and barrels to alternate characters, alleviating the pain. On the plus side, Rare happened to include the original Donkey Kong coin-op into the game, which is pretty cool and something fun to do if the main quest bores you (which it will)
Donkey Kong 64 is too large in scale for its own good. While there hasn't been a platformer sequel since, I think there is a lot of potential for a 3D DK series. It should be more like Donkey Kong Country and less like Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. A decent platformer to own.
- We have 1 review for Donkey Kong 64 (0 Staff, 1 Member)
|
